Insights

This video provides a quick introduction to the =SUMIF() function in Microsoft Excel. The video also provides a quick demonstration of what is likely the most common use of =SUMIF() in a financial model: organizing monthly information into quarters and annual periods (skip to 1:15 for this example).

The calculation behind the catch-up provision that determines the general partner’s (GP) carried interest at a private equity fund can cause some confusion. In this post we will explain the math in the Excel template available on ASM.

EBITDA is often criticized as an imperfect measure of earnings to use broadly in comparing the profitability of companies across industries. But the concept wasn’t developed for this purpose. It was invented by billionaire investor John Malone.

I have been working with a friend of mine who prefers to remain anonymous and happens to be a real estate professional to develop a simple real estate distribution waterfall (I will refer to him as Dimitri for the purpose of this post). Our working relationship consists of me interrupting his day with short emails containing Excel templates and bulleted questions, which he graciously responds to with quick answers pulling from years of experience. It’s a highly iterative process that hopefully consumes little of his time.

We are excited to announce the addition of a new feature: ASM Subscriber Profiles (see image below). Subscribers can now upload examples of their own work and share (or hide) exam results with a public page listing their accomplishments and interests. In addition to uploading unique templates or analysis, we are also encouraging subscribers to upload improvements to ASM templates available on the website. Each time a subscriber uploads an example of their own work, ASM will create a unique page for that post linking back to the subscriber’s profile. Ultimately we hope that this will help subscribers get noticed for their talent. The profile page will also track how often a subscriber’s work is downloaded and voted as helpful.